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Selyn Distribution System (Culture)
In the old Householdings, channels and Companions formed pairs who worked together every day on every shift on every problem. It was a personal relationship and a professional one. But for the higher order channels such as the Farrises (who were extremely rare in the early days and remain rare into the Interstellar age) there sometimes could arise a Dependency, a situation where the pair could only work together, and not with others of similar skills. Various strategies developed to avert Dependency as it could so easily become a major threat to the embattled Householdings living behind walls, being attacked by town juncts, out-Territory Gens (both bandits and government supported), and even the Sime Territory government. The Householding's Companion Staff and the Channeling Staff co-managed the Selyn Distribution System within the Householding and at first was responsible for major decisions such as building construction, water supply, and food storage and preparation. In larger Householdings, responsibility for infrastructure was spread to elected groups and specialists. The group known as the Channeling Staff was often composed of channels, Companions, and an assortment of renSimes and Gens who managed records, schedules, liason with the general management of the Householding (whatever form that governing body took), and sometimes relationships with the surrounding junct communities. The Channeling Staff together with the general governing body looked to the Sectuib as the final arbiter of any dispute. The Sectuib would often initiate projects such as building, expansion, acquiring or sowing the Householding's own farm land, the selection of cash crops, and most importantly the selection of new members. But for the most part, these projects were left to the general management which was mainly responsible for generating the necessary cash income. This small-village structure changed markedly with Unity (Year 0 on the Unity Calendar which uniquely has a Year 0). The Tecton, the loose confederation of Householdings, arose from the necessity to trade Householding to Householding because the general junct society refused to trade with Householding perverts. The Tecton consisted mostly of the amalgam of Channeling Staffs and general governing bodies. Since the method of choosing the general governing bodies varied markedly Householding to Householding, and the governing philosophy differed to the point of vehement and continuous argument, most of the interaction outside of Trade was left to the Channeling Staffs which were pretty much identical in concerns, priorities, and methods. The main business of the Tecton other than simple commodity trading, skills sharing and training artisans and defense teams, was training channels and Companions, and trading those talented ones from one Householding to another to find a compatible place to live for the individual. Naturally, the Tecton leaders often thought in terms of breeding channels and Companions for Talent as they traded and made matches from Channeling Staff to Channeling Staff. Detailed genealogical records were made, kept, and cherished. So by the time of Unity, the Tecton was ready to expand their management of selyn flows to serve the in-Territory junct communities by drawing selyn from the out-Territory Gen community and "re-using" the Pen Gens. See To Kiss or To Kill for a broader portrait of this process begun in Zelerod's Doom . It was, however, logistically necessary to break up all the channel/Companion pairs as the majority of new channels and their Gens were drawn from the junct and/or out-Territory community. These new pairs were from a wholly different culture than existed within Householdings. The Householders always felt that Householdings differed markedly from each other, but they were identical from the outside perspective, and regarded as a Group. Due to the political and military nature of the coups that imposed Tecton rule on everyone, Householders became the target of resentment, jealousy, contempt, distrust and other disruptive emotions. In a series of attempts to settle this stew of emotions, the Tecton eliminated the title Companion, a title of vast prestige within a Householding. Channels were born - they couldn't help what they were. Companions chose the profession, endured arduous training and often sacrificed normal family life to serve their channels. Companions were respected and reverenced, their achievements the subject of song and legend. The excuse for eliminating the title Companion was that the job description had changed. Companions were bound to, lived with, and worked often more than 12 hours a day in the same room with their channels. Their very identities often blended into one. The Tecton, in order to be able to move channeling capacity around the countryside where it was required had to break that bond, assigning channels to work with or have transfer with whatever Gen was nearby. Such bonds had not been formed by the majority of working disjunct channels drawn into service at Unity, and such individuals had no respect for that Bond. They didn't have it; why should Householders? Householdings, however, valued the title Companion. It was more than just the person who gave transfer to a certain channel. It was an office that could be filled only by a seasoned, mature decision maker who understood the Householding, and the personal concerns of the individuals their channel worked for and with. So the Householdings kept the title Companion, and continued to award that title and require performance of that office within the Householding despite what other duties that individual might have outside the Householding. The walls of the Householding compounds might have come down at Unity, but the division between Householders and everyone else was retained and guarded. Anyone who had earned the title Companion was, however, also a Tecton Donor. The job description of the Tecton Donor was to serve whatever channel the local Tecton Controller assigned them. The Tecton Controller was the title created to designate the selyn-distribution manager for a Sime Center (a building full of channels, Donors, staff, to collect, transport and deliver selyn and health services, i.e. a Hospital), for a village, a town, a city, a District, a Territory. Eventually the title World Controller was created. A Controller is essentially a chief accountant of a corporation, a CFO where selyn is the currency being accounted for measured and quantified in dynopters. The Controller, customarily, was always a channel because the Controller was responsible for assigning channels and Donors for transfer and into working teams. To do that without literally murdering the channels or Donors by errors in judgement (see Unto Zeor, Forever ), the individual making those decisions had to have the ability to zlin deep into the nervous systems of the channels and determine their condition and requirements for continued functioning. But the Controller's job itself is just an accounting job, not one with the life or death power over people that the old Householding Sectuib had before Unity, therefore it was usually the Controller's staff that did most of the real work. That staff was generally composed of renSimes and Gens who had a talent for bookkeeping and accounting, and historical record keeping and librarian grade organizing of records for accessibility. Eventually, the title Tecton Donor came to be highly respected as training and cultural standards and expectations raised generations who took pride in their work. Concurrently, the science behind Transfer Mechanics increased in precision, the training methods for Donors became extremely standardized so that channels could rely absolutely on the skills and responses of the total strangers they worked with. In any emergency, any channel could step into a situation and work beside and with any other channel or Donor, finger, hand, and tentacle gestures, selyn-field manipulation signals all completely uniform world-wide. Terminology became standardized. "Tecton Standard" became the imprimatur of true Quality Assurance. And the Householdings fought it every step of the way. Laws were instituted that permitted Householdings to adhere to and teach their own standards. Householding Channeling Staffs were allowed to promulgate their own traditions generation to generation, though not all Householdings took this path. Zeor and its daughter Householdings became legendary for holding to their own internal standards, and the Zeor standards were generally acknowledged to be much higher, more precise, and more accurate than Tecton Standard. This view triggered wave after wave of anti-Householding sentiment with calls to abolish Householdings because they foster arrogance, and hold the Tecton (savior of Humanity) in contempt (which of course, the Householdings did not!). But Householders were few, especially those who held to non-Tecton practices, so even the empathy native to the Sime and the compassion native to the Gen population could not offset the suspicion and distrust of Householders by descendants of the majority junct population and even bigger out-Territory Gen descendents. Even after Unity, newly formed Householdings were legally allowed (after much political wrangling) to adopt their Parent Householding's standards, or if not parented, a new Householding could adopt Tecton Standard transfer, or a higher standard, but never lower. All Gens who entered the profession earned the title Donor (with a capital D), but only a few also carried the title Companion. Those few were annually given special leave to travel wherever necessary to serve transfer for their Householding channel. That consideration set them apart from all other Donors and fueled the anti-Householder sentiment. This social stress became historically known as the hallmark of the time of the Modern Tecton, but that perspective only came into being with the advent of the Interstellar Tecton.